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Downtown Columbus has an upturn

One by one, ideas from a city plan are inspiring development

In 2010, the city adopted the Downtown Columbus Strategic Plan that outlined a vision for
Downtown through this decade and beyond that built on previous plans. The plan listed 12 ideas city
leaders should pursue. Here is the list and the status of each:

Discovery District

1: Southeast Gateway Opportunity: The Discovery District Special Improvement
District created a plan with guidelines to redevelop the southeastern section of Downtown as Mound
and Fulton streets are reintegrated into the Downtown street system with the I-70/I-71 project.

2. Infill housing around the Old Deaf School Park: Nothing yet.

3. Creative campus: Plans are underway for street and other improvements near
Columbus College of Art & Design and Columbus Museum of Art.

New development on the Scioto Peninsula in Franklinton. A 33-acre park along the Scioto River —
the Scioto Greenway project — approved last week by the Downtown Commission.

Both ideas came out of a plan the city adopted three years ago to transform Downtown. And while
many plans come and go, most of the 12 ideas in 2010’s Downtown Columbus Strategic Plan are coming
together.

Plans are underway to transform the neighborhood around the Columbus College of Art & Design
and Columbus State Community College into a “creative campus” with improved streets and more green
space. Apartments are being built along S. High Street. Bike stations with lockers have popped up
across Downtown.

“These are all catalytic ideas. Business leadership and political leadership all got engaged,”
said Amy Taylor, chief operating officer for the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., the private
nonprofit group that helped put together the plan.

The 12 ideas “are intended to inspire Columbus to think big and to bring people together around
common goals and projects,” the plan says. Funding sources still need to be found for a number of
the ideas.

City leaders still are considering a 120,000-square-foot Downtown field house near the Greater
Columbus Convention Center that could accommodate sports tournaments and other events. They are
determining whether there’s enough need for the building to justify the cost, said Bill Jennison of
the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.

While S. High Street is being transformed with the Highpoint on Columbus Commons apartments and
other residential projects, the city has struggled to create momentum along High Street north of
Broad Street. The city continues to offer tax incentives and other programs to try to jump-start
interest there, said Bill Webster, deputy development director.

“Because of the sheer size and importance of High Street, we’re trying to create as much density
as possible,” Webster said.Plans also are underway to narrow Broad Street to five lanes between
Front Street and I-71, with trees and other green spaces, although city leaders have stopped
talking about putting in a median.

“It will be a much more lush street,” said Cleve Ricksecker, the executive director of the
Capital Crossroads and Discovery District special-improvement districts.

The city also plans to pave Gay Street between Cleveland and Washington avenues with bricks,
while making the area near the Columbus College of Art & Design more pedestrian friendly, said
Dennison W. “Denny” Griffith, CCAD’s president. The city wants to build raised intersections to
calm traffic in that area in 2015, said Rick Tilton, Columbus assistant public-service director.
The city also plans to add streetlights.

The Downtown plan also called for a single Downtown bike station with storage facilities,
lockers and showers, but Ricksecker said bike shelters across town are filling that need. And those
cyclists who park at the shelter near the Downtown YMCA can use that facility’s showers, he
said.

What about the proposed Downtown pedestrian bridge linking the east and west banks of the Scioto
River? That was put on hold until plans came together for the Scioto Peninsula, Taylor said.

Several other projects on the plan’s to-do list are dead or are dying. For example, a Downtown
Central Ohio Transit Authority transit center is not going to happen.

“I don’t think it’s front and center for us in the immediate future,” COTA spokesman Marty Stutz
said. “There’s not a demand from customers for that facility.”

Another dead-end is a 3-C multimodal station, which could link intercity rail with local light
rail or streetcar systems. Until Columbus gets intercity rail, the project’s a no-go.

The plan also calls for apartment buildings on what are now parking lots along the Old Deaf
School Park east of the Main Library. Motorists Mutual Insurance owns the lots. Motorists spokesman
Todd Long emailed that there have been no discussions with the city about developing the lots.

Patrick Losinski, the library’s chief operating officer, said he hopes the new Cristo Rey
Columbus High School, which is to move into the former Ohio State School for the Deaf next to the
library in 2014, and other projects in the area will spur additional development.